Drama-free living is everyone’s new year #goals. Say them with us: No more toxic relationships… The kids will wake up for school and leave for the bus on time without any arguments… Everyone in the house will turn in for bed at a reasonable time…
All these good habits can help bring a feeling of calmness, but we may be overlooking a little something. A lot of little somethings that can add up to big internal drama.
Clutter.
Yeah, it’s easy to get judgy about what’s cluttering up everyone else’s countertops and cabinets. Maybe, our BFF has so many old food containers and mismatched lids that they leap out of every open cabinet door. And what about Nana’s collection of Persian cat tchotchkes that’s taken over every flat surface in her apartment? We see them in our nightmares. We just can’t forget that clutter is still clutter when it looks different from home to home.
What tangible objects are we holding on to past their usefulness? Clearing out clutter isn’t just about making more space for new stuff. Living in a place that’s physically cluttered with stuff—no matter what kind of stuff—can make us feel claustrophobic, overwhelmed, and tired.
- Is that stack of old magazines we think we’re going to reference for something turning into a tower of I-will-deal-with-it-later? Let’s recycle that ASAP and enjoy the empty space where that used to be.
- The clothes in the back of the closet we think we’re going to fit into, again? They’re not aspirational, they’re just making our entire wardrobe feel oppressive. Let’s donate those things and enjoy putting on clothes that fit well and make us feel good.
- How about the collection of half-used bath and body care products under the bathroom sink? Those dusty bottles and bars and bags of odds & ends that were supposed to facilitate selfcare rituals are expired or smelly, or just didn’t work for us. We can pass the good things along to someone else and the rest just has to go.
It feels good not to have to dig past clutter to get to the things we need. We feel lighter when we’re not surrounded by things we accumulated in the past and are putting off dealing with until some unknown time in the future. It feels good to exist in a home that has some clean, open spaces and positive energy to boost our goals for drama-free living.
What other bits of clutter can we tackle around the house today?
